Robert Grant

“ It is not easy, however, my correspondents, to decide whether there lies greater danger for the modern woman with social ambitions in the allurements of mere fashionable society, or in the temptations to be smart, superficial, and common, which confront her at the point where the alliance shades toward the camp of democratic individuality. Here there is a second chasm; yet, like the sunken road into which the cuirassiers of Napoleon fell at Waterloo, it is not evident at first glance to those who, fired by the ardor of youth, but socially unenlightened, tilt at fame and world progress. ”

“ The homely adage that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear is full of meaning for democracy. Manners must go hand in hand with morals, or character will show no more lustre than the uncut and unpolished diamond, whose latent brilliancy is marred by uncouthness, so that it may readily be mistaken for a vulgar stone.
I assume, then, that you possess honesty, purity, and courage, the intention to be unselfish and sympathetic, and an appreciation of the stigma of vulgarity. If you are seeking the ideal, you will try to be, in the first place, an uncommon person. ”

“ Americanism to-day stands in a sense more accurate than before as the experiment of government of the people, for the people, and by the people, and for the most complete amalgamation of the blood of Christendom which the human race has ever known. We have lately been celebrating our centennial anniversaries. Already the great figures of our early history seem remote. The struggle in which we are engaged is intenser and broader than theirs: It concerns the progress of human society. You, whom I am addressing, find yourself a unit in a vast, heterogeneous population and a complex civilization. ”

“ It was an American who bade you hitch your wagon to a star, and you have only to reflect in order to recall the spiritual vigor, the righteous force of will, the strength of aspiring mind, the patriotic courage, the tireless soul-struggle of the early generations of choicely educated, simply nurtured Americans. Their thought and conscience, true and star-seeking even in its limitations, laid the foundations of law and order, of civic liberty and private welfare, of national honor and domestic repute. ”

“ And it is not a little thing to have discovered that, though their hearts were right and their intentions good, our forefathers were not so abnormally virtuous and wise as to entitle them or us to an exclusive and proscriptive patent of superiority. We glory in them, but while we revere them as the fosterers and perpetuators of that fine, energetic, high-minded, probing spirit which we call the touch-stone of Americanism, we are prepared, with some reluctance, yet frankly, when cornered, to admit that they did not possess a monopoly of righteousness or knowledge. ”

“ Can we continue to declare that we are the most honest and aspiring people in the world and expect that portion of the world which has any sense of humor not to smile? Are we, who have been accustomed to boast of our spotless integrity as a people, ready to fall back on and console ourselves with the boast, which does duty nowadays on lenient lips, that we are as honest as any of the nations of Europe except, possibly, England? That is an indirect form of patriotic negation under the shadow of which low comedians and leading villains could ply their trade comparatively unmolested. ”

“ Don't you think there is a great deal of humbug in the notion that in order to laugh lightly and remember gladly men need to be titillated either by wine or tobacco? I'm glad you wouldn't allow that bumptious clergyman to ride in a first-class car, but I don't see why the world should not be just as gay, and many women twice as happy, if there were no wine or tobacco. Only think how light-hearted woman would be if the incubus of man's drunkenness, under which she has staggered for hundreds of years, should be lifted off forever! ”

“ Let me here state that I am entirely conscious that it is not a prerequisite to earnest living to be socially effective at all. One can pursue one's occupation, be it house-keeping, school teaching, scientific philanthropy, or novel writing without taking any part in what is known as society, and still be respectable and worthy in character. Yet if every woman were simply to eat her three meals a day, sleep, be affectionate to her family, reasonably charitable, and do her daily task, the world would lose much of its vivacity, color, and æsthetic interest. ”

“ In other words, that our theory of government is government by the average, and that the average is remarkably high. This comfortable view induces many like yourself to wrap themselves round with the American flag and smile at destiny, sure that everything will result well with us sooner or later, and impatient of criticism or doubts. As a people we delight in patting ourselves on the back and dismissing our worries as mere flea-bites. ”

“ Under the insidious influence of this mode of enlightenment the every-day keen American citizen goes about with his head in the air, knowing in his secret heart that one-half of what he hears from the lips of those who represent him in public is buncombe, but content with the shadow for the substance, and wearing a chip on his shoulder as a warning to those who would assert that we are not really as virtuous and as noble as our spokesmen have declared. ”

“ In another corner of the stage stand the ten thousand superior, self-centred souls who neglect to vote and despise politics—the mixed corps of pessimists, impractical dreamers, careless idlers, and hyper-cultured world-disdainers, who hold aloof, from one motive or another, from contact with common life and a share in its responsibilities—some on the plea that universal suffrage is a folly or a failure, some that earth is but a vale of travail which concerns little the wise or righteous thinker, some from sheer butterfly or stupid idleness. ”

“ I know that the advocates of total-abstinence argue about the serenity and sane joy of a cold-water banquet, and it may be that we are a trifle hysterical in our declarations that conversation must lag until one has had a glass of champagne; but is not much of the light, masculine laughter of life associated with the fruit of the grape and the aroma of tobacco? Have you ever tried to picture to yourself a world as it would be if there were well-enforced, rigid prohibition everywhere, and the tobacco-plant were no more? ”

“ To talk for effect with the thinly concealed purpose of deceiving a part of the American people all of the time has been and continues to be a favorite practice with many of the politicians of the country. Yet this public trick of proclaiming sentiments and opinions with the tongue in the cheek is the conspicuous surface-symptom of a larger vice which is fitly described as hypocrisy. There is a way of looking at this accusation which deprives it of part of its sting, yet leaves us in a predicament not very complimentary to our boasted sense of humor. ”

“ It is the never-failing resource of the young bride and the aged matron alike when pricked by the spur of social activity. Out go the cards of invitation, thin bread and butter is cut, and presently, on the appointed day, a file or a throng, according to weather and circumstances, of petticoats goes into and from the house, and when the last skirt has disappeared you breathe a sigh of relief and self-congratulation. "Thank heaven, that is over, and I can start afresh with a clear conscience and an erect head." Marvellous are the ways of the modern woman. ”

“ The wonder book of nature is constantly being held up by poet and painter as the source of human ideality, and all the traditions of civilization urge you to attain that degree of artistic development under the white light of which the seals of that book become loosened, and you are able to read in the evening star and the mountain torrent lessons of inspiration and truth. ”

“ On one side of this chasm live those whose vital interest is to be exquisite and to be entertained; on the other, those whose souls are bent upon the finest aspirations and hopes of the race. In the heart of this alliance between conventional culture and humanity the reforms, the enterprises, and the safeguards projected for the advancement of modern society are born, and here they find their truest champions. ”

“ You and I, as men of the world, will agree that if the American people prefer or find it more serviceable to cherish bribery as a federal institution, no one will interfere. The fact that it is ethically wrong is interesting to real philosophers and to the clergy, but bribery will continue to flourish like a bay-tree if it is the sort of thing which the American people like. ”

“ To demonstrate that the American woman, when she has all the opportunities which health, wealth, and leisure can bestow, is content to become a mere quick-witted, shallow voluptuary?
You will be told that these people are very inconsiderable in number, that they really exercise a small influence, and that one is not to judge the men and women of the United States by them. It is true that they are not very numerous, though their number seems to be increasing, and I am fain to believe that they are not merely out of sympathy with, but alien in character to, the American people as a whole ”

“ We have, as I have intimated, passed through the pioneer stage of national development; we have tilled our fields, opened our mines, built our railroads, established our large cities—in short, have laid the foundations of a new and masterful civilization; it now remains for us to show whether we are capable of treating with originality the old problems which confront complex societies, and of solving them for the welfare of the public and the consequent elevation of individual character. ”

“ Undeniably there are no laws which prohibit the wealthy from squandering their riches in futile extravagance and wasting their time in empty frivolities, nor is our leisure class peculiar in this when compared with the corresponding class in other countries, unless it be in a more manifest bent toward civic imbecility. But, from the point of view of human progress, is it not rather discouraging that the most financially prosperous should aspire merely to mimic and outdo the follies of courts, the heartless levity and extravagance of which have been among the instigators of popular revolution? ”

“ To be sure the scope of our originality has not been entirely directed to things material, for we have ever asserted with some vehemence our devotion to the things of the spirit, squinting longingly at them even when obliged to deplore only a passing acquaintance with them because of lack of time. The splendid superficiality of the army of youth of both sexes in the department of intellectual and artistic exertion, which has been one of the notable features of the last thirty years, has shown clearly enough the true temper and fibre of our people. ”

“ Among those who claimed in their own hearts social prestige it was long the fashion to shrug their shoulders over the raw eccentricities of their fellow-countrymen, which, as revealed both in public affairs and during European travel, were often startling to precise taste and wofully suggestive of the boaster. Yet those very traits in their truer expression have been the vital force of the people, and give us our savor as a nation. Not to possess them is to be without the characteristics of an American. ”

“ But though the possession of wealth and social sophistication are no longer regarded as un-American, the public sentiment against open or tacit assumption of social superiority, or a lack of sympathy with democratic principles, is as strong as ever. It is incumbent, therefore, on you, if you would be an American in the best sense, to fix your ideal of life high, and at the same time to fix it in sympathy with the underlying American principle of a broad and progressive common humanity, free from caste or discriminating social conventions. ”

“ The ideal life to-day is that which maintains the noblest aims of the aspiring past, cherishing unselfishness, purity, courage, truth, joy, existence, fineness of sentiment and æsthetic beauty; but cherishes these in the spirit and for the purposes of a broader humanity than the melting soul has hitherto discerned in the sunset, the ocean, or the starry heavens. There are among us men and women living in this spirit of idealism, and they, O, my correspondents! are the first-class passengers. ”

“ If, pardon me, men were all women in their appetites, and life were one grand pastoral à la Puvis de Chavannes—if, in short, the world were not the bustling, feverish, perplexing, exhausting, crushing, cruel world, men would not crave stimulants to help them to do their work or to forget it. If there were no alcohol or cigars, would not those who now use either to excess have recourse to some other form of stimulant or fatigue and pain disguiser instead? ”